


The Deal with The Beast's Servant

by Ivankaracheev



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Deal with a Devil, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Halloween, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jekyll and Hyde, London, M/M, Master/Servant, Minor Violence, Organized Crime, Orphanage, Pedophilia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sweeney Todd References, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:36:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivankaracheev/pseuds/Ivankaracheev
Summary: As the servant of The Beast, Greg's paternal grandfather and a very respectable gentleman within London's society with a dark secret, Mr. Colin O'Colingan, should have made a lot of deals with his friends, enemies and random citizens of Victorian-era London in his life, in order to get their souls to his master, who turns them into the Edelwood trees, so the one, who carries the master's lantern for him, should chop them down and feed the master's soul with the tree oil.But twelve years later, after his and Wirt's adventure in the Unknown, Greg decides to make a deal with his grandfather in his manor during the party on the Halloween night, who himself has very big and ambiguous plans for Greg.
Relationships: Gregory (Over the Garden Wall)/Original Character, The Beast (Over the Garden Wall)/Original Character(s)





	The Deal with The Beast's Servant

Colin O'Colingan, or how everyone in London called him, "The Orphanmaker", due to him being in charge of the orphanages, where the children of his enemies and victims were placed, or "Mephistopheles of London", due to him making people to agree to his appealing deals, that only benefit him in any different way and turn out to be disastrous for the ones, who took the said deals.

No matter how they called him, everyone in London feared, hated and respected him, due to him being the one of the most powerful businessmen in England and a leader of the vastly rich criminal organisation, that was formed years before Greg was even born and now, it dominated not only the criminal underworld of the capital of the British Isles, but also its industrial sector, business sector, politics, church, law courts, labour unions, police force and many other things.

It seemed to many, even for his surviving rivals and allies that O'Colingan controlled the every single aspect of life in London itself and the ones who tried to dare to call him out on this, were found dead under the mysterious circumstances or killed off by the unknown murderer.

They feared, hated and respected a man, who was a talented Irish barber, who eventually became a most powerful criminal and businessman in London, who was very influential. Even the royal family were scared of him, for a bit.

But nobody in the entire world, except for his sweet and innocent, yet now adult grandson, Gregory, didn't knew that O'Colingan was the most powerful servant of the nightmarish creature of darkness called The Beast, whom he encountered in order to save his own half-brother Richard, who was nicknamed by him as Wirt, who eventually became one of his grandfather's servants and members of his criminal syndicate, known as Dr. Carl "Scareye" Limberton and his healing doctor, who was in charge of prestigious McStabbington's Orphanage, which itself was located in Cavendish Square, from who he didn't needed official psychotherapeutic healing anymore, but he still visits him time to time under the excuse of psychotherapy sessions.

He only wanted the truth about everything in London, his grandfather and his connections with the Beast and the Unknown.

He's determined to find out and he, unlike all the rest in London, doesn't fear or submitted to O'Colingan, but he fears and hates his split personality called The Orphanmaker, due to some bad things that happened to him that he managed to thoroughly conceal by the façade of genuine innocence and childish sweetness.

Greg got his chance to see his grandfather in his manor numerous times, but eventually, he found out that the manor was nicknamed "The Devil's Palace" by a random beggar lady, that he met years ago, because some bad things happened there, or something like that.

Greg didn't cared about the now deceased beggar lady at that moment.

He was not afraid of his grandfather's manor. He was afraid of its owner's darkest side and things that happened there to him, when he was four.

Lately, he heard the rumours from a couple of random citizens that his grandfather is going to throw a party in his manor and invite everybody who is from the elite upper class in London to attend the ball on the day of All Hallows Eve, which will be in the next week, when he was walking back to his low-rent apartment from his work as a caretaker in Whitechapel Orphanage.

Which ironically is the twelfth anniversary of when he and Wirt fell into a lake and entered the Unknown and saw its wonders and nightmares, because it happened on Halloween night.

 _"What a strange coincidence."_ Greg thought to himself, as he was sitting on the chair in front of the empty dinner table and eating moderately-made mashed potatoes with a molasses syrup.

* * *

_Meanwhile in the Unknown._

O'Colingan was walking in the Edelwood forest, that was greeting him with a forced smiles from the Edelwood trees, which made them even more horrifying than they already were, as walked into the forest's darkness, where his master, The Beast, was waiting for him and when he approached him, it was clearly that his master was angry at him for making him wait for his return, despite the fact, that he was mostly covered in the darkness.

When O'Colingan finally approached him, The Beast said in his deep and authorative voice what he had in mind:

"Took you long enough, Colin. What made you to held up in the mortal realm, despite your business?"

The Beast demanded the explanation from O'Colingan on why he was holding up in London, despite their usual business, i.e. bringing souls into the Unknown.

O'Colingan initially hesitated to answer, but with an inherent nonchalance in his deepening voice, he said what he wanted to say and gave The Beast the explanation that he wanted.

"The reason why I held up was because I was preparing everything in my manor for the All Hallow's Eve party, Master."

The Beast was unfazed by his explanation and was still angry at O'Colingan.

"A celebration of the celestial festivity. Is that your excuse?"

He leaned towards O'Colingan and grabbed him by his tie with his covered in darkness hand like a dog's leash.

"Or you had something else in your mind for an explanation?"

He felt that his master tightened his grip on his tie, which nearly causing him slowly to suffocate, but he almost managed to talk his way out of the torture.

"I.. W-was busy preparing the party for you to receive..."

"Receive what?" The Beast demandingly asked him.

"To receive the souls for your forest, m-master..." O'Colingan, while being almost choked to death with his own tie, replied to him.

The Beast let go of his tie and O'Colingan straightened it, while catching his breath.

"I'm expecting the barrage of lost souls in my forest at the day of your festivity. If you fail me, I'll replace you with someone else, who knows what they are doing."

O'Colingan knew that his master was lying about him being replaced, because he knew two things; the entire city of London, like his own back of the hand and without him, The Beast wouldn't acquire a lot of souls to sustain himself during their lengthy time with each other.

But what The Beast didn't knew about him is also two things; the feelings to him and The Orphanmaker.

About the existence of the latter, his master shouldn't know whatsoever, because he is potentially dangerous to everyone around him, including The Beast.

But all thoughts aside, after their conversation ended, O'Colingan saw his master getting back in to the pitch black darkness of the Unknown, while he sang about the effectiveness of Colin and how much trees he brings into the forest.

O'Colingan eventually returned back to London, into his manor's office, which itself was covered in darkness due to gas lamps being turned off and the curtains closing the window. He parted the curtains and the shining light of the sunny day was lighting up his office, as his eyes slowly and painfully got used to the daylight.

* * *

_Three days later at the Whitechapel Orphanage._

Greg was currently at the job of being the orphanage's caretaker, where he took care of his duties, such as making sure that the orphaned children are being cared about and treated with kindness, as well as cooking and feeding them and cleaning the mess after them, or asking his assistant Theodore, who was younger than him for two years, to do it, if he feels busy and constantly being in the orphanage's headmaster, Dr. Miltonson's study, due to him either reporting the situation in the orphanage or satisfying his need in therapy sessions or just wanting to talk with him about his problems.

But today, Greg didn't found Dr. Miltonson in his study, but instead, he found him and Theodore in the orphanage's basement room, talking about something, but their topic of discussion wasn't about the children or Greg's efforts to keep them happy during their stay in the orphanage, until the moment, when the local wealthy and probably upper-class, but childless family, who decided to adopt one of the children from the orphanage, comes here today.

Instead, their topic of conversation was entirely different and disgustingly interesting, so Greg decided to eavesdrop on them, when they started to talk and one of the men's voices in the basement room sounded like he doesn't care about the children's happiness at all.

They were arguing about the child prostitution business.

"I don't care if they don't want to participate in our shady side business, Teddy, which is one of the primary ones for our orphanage's most dearest benefactor and our organisation's boss, Mr. O'Colingan."

Then one of the men's voices started to sound defiant, as he was arguing with Miltonson. It was Theodore.

"You cannot do that to them, especially when O'Colingan's grandson works here and judging by his name, he's very watchful about their condition, Doctor."

And then, the uncaring voice of Miltonson, started to sound nonchalant and somewhat angry towards the defiant one of Theodore's.

"The child prostitution business was made here by my ex-colleague, who died under the mysterious consequences at the underground metropolitan station next to orphanage years ago, just because he couldn't satisfy himself and his killing of the family of the university dean, who taught me about psychology almost thirty years ago."

Miltonson approached Theodore and he said to him these following words.

"And then Hincott, the notary who was at one point almost kissing our boss' Irish arse, gave me the ownership of the orphanage. I didn't like it because of the pimping, at first, but then, as years passed, I felt like pimping children was a necessity for me to serve Mr. O'Colingan's interests in underage pimping and slave trade and labour business, alongside Dr. Limberton."

He leaned to Theodore and whispered in his ear with an eerie smile.

"Children like you, Teddy."

And then, his hand was groping Theodore's buttocks, which caused the latter to forcefully push Miltonson away from himself and shoutingly say.

"You were pimping children for almost thirty years? That's bloody disgusting!"

But this only made the Doctor laugh evilly.

"Oh, did I said, almost thirty years, Teddy?"

And then, he grabbed Theodore's coat collar and started to beat him in his pretty, oval-shaped face, like he wasn't an assistant in his shady business, but a punching bag for him.

"I meant almost twenty, Teddy!"

As Theodore fell on the basement room's floor after a savage beating, Miltonson was kicking his stomach with his feet, and then, he dragged him by his long hair to the room's wall, put him up, beaten his face, pinned him against the said wall and angrily said to him, while also choking him.

"Listen to me, you bitch! You're just a little whore for me. You are O'Colingan's whore! My whore! And if you dare to tell me what to do or if you try to run away from me, I'll kill you on sight, or order Chesterfield the Midget to beat the living hell out of you and when you die, our boss' master will have a personal talk with you, understand?!?"

Theodore nods and with gesture of obedience, Miltonson stops choking him and lets him go.

"Good. Don't try to tell me what to do and under whose watch the children are. They are our source of income and not a pretty little humans, that this hypocritical society tries to protect."

Behind the basement room's door, Greg heard enough of Dr. Miltonson's side business and quietly left the basement, as well as the orphanage in order to process what he just heard today on one of the many streets of London's Whitechapel district, as well as to get a breather from the revelation that his employer is not who he seemed to be.

* * *

_Whitechapel Streets' Alleyway, couple of blocks outside of the orphanage._

Greg couldn't believe that Dr. Miltonson, his kind of a maternal uncle and the man who took him into his custody from his abusive maternal grandmother's orphanage, where he was held there since the house fire that happened when he was nine, which occurred almost four years ago, was a sadistic and pedophilic pimp, who was selling orphaned children as prostitutes for money, and for the people, who was a secretive pedophiles, such as one beadle, who was working for a rapist of a judge and who he saw in St. Dunstan's Market when he was twelve.

And the mere thought of his own grandfather was patronising such an atrocious business made him feel sick, as he, after the fire's events, at first assumed that it was one of his men's work and the way to show how his grandfather truly hates him just for his mere existence.

He didn't knew the fact that Wirt or Dr. Limberton, how everyone called him now, was also heavily involved in this, which made him afraid, as he saw him in the night of the fire, but he wasn't looking like his usually depressed and worrying self and eventually, after their memorable trip to the Unknown, joyful, confident self, and mostly uplifted from hating him to caring about him.

He was looking like a nightmarish monstrosity, who wanted to kill him, just for the mere existence, but he eventually disappeared and resurfaced as Dr. Carl Limberton, years later, because he recognised his voice and was occasionally stalking him, when he was wearing the same cloak and cone hat, but pretended that it's not Wirt and it was his healing doctor, which only helped Wirt to stay anonymous from him, but not from his grandfather, as he was now one of his most trusted servants.

Greg couldn't believe and stand the single thought that O'Colingan had deprived him of his most precious possession.

His innocence.

 _"If I were thinking about such bad and wrong things about my own grandfather Colin as a child, it would be painful to remember and my parents and Wirt would dismiss me as usual... What kind of a person does **that** to their own grandchildren and then try to play it off as a big act like it never happened?!? I just want to think that this is still the Unknown and there's the solution to all of this mess."_ Greg's eyes began slowly to water, as he was remembering every single moment of pain that he endured when he and O'Colingan were talking about the unfortunate accident, that happened when he was four years old and ironically, mirrored his own grandfather's accident.

 _"Why my own grandfather is so cruel to everyone he sees? Why he's so cruel to me? What I did to deserve this? Did he even tried to make up for what he had ever done? What he would do, if he was in the Unknown instead of Wirt? Would he saved me from becoming an Edelwood tree against my will or would he fed me to the Beast, just to keep him alive? I just... don't know."_ Greg was covering his face with his hands, as he was now crying out of desperation and not knowing what to do, as well as out of inner misery caused by O'Colingan.

But his aforementioned grandfather was secretly watching him from behind of the alleyway, like he was a heinous shadow of the Beast, that looms over London, which he was, and instead of laughing at him for being miserable, pathetic and foolish, as he usually did to others, he instead, felt that he was deeply hurt from inside by his crying, because it closely hit him right in the heart.

He felt internal pain, remorse and regret simultaneously towards him. He tried to atone himself before Greg numerous times, yet when they tried to properly talk with each other, it ended up either disastrously bad, because of each other's reluctance to forgive, as well as holding an equal grudge and justified anger towards cruelty or if they even managed to talk about it, it felt painful, but the conversations felt like a relief, but the traumatic experience from what happened and wrongdoer's guilt still stood as a fine and almost impenetrable obstacles for the atonement and The Orphanmaker wouldn't just let his master to atone before Greg, because it would be a ruinous for his image.

An image of the man, who is feared by everyone and everywhere, alive or dead and who wanted to repeat the dreaded cycle of his master's traumatic experience as a child, when his own grandfather Henry killed his triplet brother in front of him and did the same thing to him, as he did to Greg.

And he hates himself for letting this happen, for letting his brother die, and blames himself for being weak and unable to do anything at that moment, when he himself was four years old.

And most of all, he blames himself for suggesting to his brother to look in the family manor's basement to play games there, and he didn't knew how his grandfather would react.

Vengeance for his brother was his main reason to become the Beast's most powerful servant nine years later, when he disposed of his grandfather, but it costed him dearly, as his soul was in the brief possession of the Beast.

_"If only you knew how I still feel myself about what happened to you because of me fifteen years ago. I'm sorry for what I've done to you, Gregory. I tried to redeem myself before you many times and I felt that day on Halloween, when you almost drowned, that I've got my chance. I freed you from becoming my master's survival fuel through a deal. Your and Wirt's survival was necessary to me. Wirt was already a lost cause, but you're not. I always saw the great potential in you. A potential, that you should grow to become the one, who will be free from all of this and eventually, destroy everything I've built. I know that your place is in Paradise and mine in Hell. I can't change it, no matter what I would do. My soul may belong to the Beast, but not my thoughts, memories and feelings towards you."_

Colin watched how his grandson cried out of desperation, but he knew that if he would approached him in order to comfort him and take pity on him, he only exacerbate the already painful situation for him. And the party, that he is hosting in the night of Halloween will be the great opportunity to talk to him like an proper adult, who can express himself in person.

Greg didn't noticed his grandfather, who was watching him from behind and eventually wiped off his tears from his eyes with his right arm, stopped crying and returned back to orphanage, but he kept his mouth about Miltonson incident shut, as it would expose the fact that he knows about his side business.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the characters from Over the Garden Wall, nor from other works, such as Sweeney Todd, Jekyll and Hyde and Alice: Madness Returns.
> 
> Colin O'Colingan is completely original and belongs to me.
> 
> I know that Wirt's name is not Richard and wouldn't serve the Beast voluntarily, but he was forced to serve him through a mind demon called Richard's corruption.
> 
> Btw, it would be interesting to see Wirt and Greg in the Victorian era London, plus some mysticism and vibes of many other works set in Victorian era Britain, like Sweeney Todd, Jekyll and Hyde and Alice: Madness Returns, as well as myth about Doctor Faust and The Divine Comedy.
> 
> Btw, beware of the references to the characters from the aformentioned works and there will be a lot of them, obviously because I wanted to make a crossover between this works with the original characters.
> 
> Btw, beware that there's a lot of unsettling themes of the Victorian era, some violence, mentions of pedophilia and profanity.


End file.
